Lake Consequence (1987) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski) and Tuna

Scoop's notes in white

Lake Consequence has a small, tightly-defined target audience. It is the perfect movie for those of you who like the plotlines and characterization in porn movies, but don't actually enjoy watching hard core sex scenes. Instead of hardcore grinding, this film substitutes the  softcore, "couples erotica" feeling of Red Shoe Diaries - swirling camera movement, sexy jazz music, cutaways to exotic visuals, brief glimpse of body parts

Here's how a typical scene goes. A women is in a trailer. The vehicle attached to the trailer starts to pull away, taking her with it. Unable to escape, and unable to communicate to the driver of the pick-up, she falls asleep. When she awakens, she is in a remote area called Lake Consequence. Nobody at Lake Consequence has a phone, either a cellular or a land-line. In order for her to make a phone call, she'll need the driver of the pick-up truck to drive her "miles" into "town".

The driver of the pickup, a beautiful woman who happens to be sunning stark naked when first spied by the trailer passenger, says something like, "Nothing happens by accident. You wanted to be here for some reason. You were looking for something. I suggest we find out what it is." This leads to various sexual acts generally disapproved by the Republican Party. That whole section of the film encompasses thirty minutes of running time, but the line in quotes is the only dialogue, except for necessary mundane matters like "do you have a phone?".

"Do you have a phone?" seems to be the softcore equivalent of "I'm here to fix your washing machine."

Luckily for our trailer-girl, the nearby "town" in this remote mountain region not only has a phone, but also a massive parade for the Chinese New Year. If you want to make your own Zalman King films, your characters are required to be within short driving distance of major bacchanalian celebrations. The Chinese New Year is best, but Mardi Gras will do in a pinch. If it is summertime, it is permissible to substitute a traveling carnival with plenty of handsome, bare-chested roustabouts sledge-hammering massive stakes into the ground, while straining every muscle in their sweat-drenched bodies.

Doug Pratt's Laserdisc Reviews described Lake Consequence beautifully, as follows:

Although the housewife appeared to be living in a typical American suburb, they drive for a while and end up in a remote mountain lake that is apparently up the hill from Thailand, where they go for the evening to debauch after a busy day of skinny dipping. The image has hazes that go beyond deliberateness. A jazz score tends to fill in the vacuum caused by a lack of dialogue.

Oh, let's face it, this really is an episode of Red Shoe Diaries. It was written and directed by the Red Shoe impresario, Zalman King himself. Unfortunately, while Lake Consequence has the same amount of plot and dialogue as a typical episode of that program, it occupies thrice the running time. Since those episodes of Red Shoe Diaries seem to have been stretched just to get them to thirty minutes, you can easily imagine the slow pacing of this film.

Tuna's notes in yellow

I found the monotonous sax score irritating and the flash inserts jarring, and I never felt any heat among the characters.